Caption:
“Reginald Perrin, 46, wife away, strange behaviour. Getting more brazen every day.”
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Tuesday. Before Reggie leaves the house for the day, Elizabeth phones from her mother's home, where she tells him she is staying on, as her mother has to go into hospital. She tells him to cancel the planned dinner party, and he agrees. But Reggie sees it as a perfect opportunity for a bit of fun.
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Coleridge Close, Tennyson Avenue, Wordsworth Drive. Reggie is pre-occupied as he walks through the Poets Estate, refining his plans for tonight's dinner party without food.
In the train compartment, Reggie laughs to himself for the idea of cancelling the dinner part of the party, but not the party itself. He is so pleased with himself that he talks out loud by mistake. Peter Cartwright opposite him is still sneezing, and Reggie gives him the Greater Manchester Development Plan supplement from the middle of The Times.
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Another day, another ascencion of the hallowed steps of Sunshine Desserts, or HINE ES ER , as the sign reads.
In his office, after the usual morning greetings to Joan, Reggie dictates a very rude letter, his second in two weeks to the Traffic Manager, British Rail (Southern Region) about the lateness of his trains, accusing him of not being able to run a game of strip poker in a Turkish brothel, and again suggesting the re-timing of the trains eleven minutes later. He also comments on Peter Cartwright's sneezing, and offers the suggestion of dividing the train into 'sneezers' and 'non-sneezers'. He then asks Joan to invite David Harris-Jones to his party, and also busty, leggy, Davina Letts-Wilkinson from the Custards Department, plus his forthright uncle, Percy Spillinger from Abinger Hammer. C.J. rings to arrange a meeting for the afternoon, and Reggie fantasises C.J. in a set of mediaeval stocks, with only his head and hands poking through, with Reggie throwing tomatoes at him, and enjoying it immensely. There is a knock at the office door. It is the firm's new German sales representative, Mr. Campbell-Lewiston, who is to be briefed by Reggie on the Exotic Ices project. Expecting a meeting straight away, he is somewhat confused when Reggie says there's been a mistake, and he will instead see him tomorrow afternoon. Campbell-Lewiston leaves the room. As Joan settles down for dictation, Reggie unashamedly tells her she has lovely breasts, then mentions the word again in error during the dictation of the letter.
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Tony Webster and Davina Letts-Wilkinson are in C.J.'s office as Reggie enters. C.J. finishes his discussion with them, and they leave. Davina thanks Reggie for the dinner invite on her way out. C.J. tells Reggie that he wants him to make a speech at the annual fruit seminar on Friday at Bilberry Hall. C.J. proudly tells him the title of the speech, which he has thought up himself: Are We Getting Our Just Desserts? Reggie makes no comment, but instead fantasises about stretching C.J. on a mediaeval turning rack. C.J. snaps him out of it, only to exclaim that it was in his old school Ruttingstag College that Reggie remembers last seeing Mr. Campbell-Lewiston. He had apparently bitten Reggie in the changing room. C.J. finds that hard to believe, and changes the subject. He advises Reggie that Mrs. C.J. does not like fish, but Reggie need not worry about that, as there will be no food at all. C.J. dispatches Reggie, and David Harris-Jones enters the office, to be absconded by C.J.
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Reggie leaves the office at the end of the working day, and is stopped in his tracks by two workmen, who are actually replacing all the letters above the doors.
It's 8pm, and Reggie's guests start to arrive at 12 Coleridge Close. First David Harris-Jones and Davina Letts-Wilkinson, who is wearing a very short and very low-cut dress. Then C.J. arrives with his wife Kate, and lastly Reggie's uncle, Percy Spillinger, a short man with a big white beard. Straight away, Percy makes a lewd comment about Davina's breasts. Reggie makes his excuses for Elizabeth's absence, and Percy makes a comment about Davina's legs, inviting her to walk across the hay fields with him. Later in the evening, David and Davina are getting tipsy, and talking about the drawings of birds on the Perrin's drinks coasters. Davina says she used to go out with an ornithologist, and Percy makes yet another comment about Davina's breasts, claiming that her ex-boyfriend wouldn't need his binoculars to have seen her knockers. Reggie leads the congregation into the garden, then into the dining room, where he tells them there is no food. Instead, he tells them he has sent a cheque for £20 to Oxfam. After the guests had gone, Reggie rings Elizabeth at her mother's house, but wakes her up. After the call, he rings her back to apologise for waking her up, and wakes her up again.
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Next morning, Reggie rings Elizabeth again, to apologise for waking her up twice last night, and wakes her up again. David Harris-Jones staggers into the room with a hangover, and holding a face flannel to his head. He has had to sleep at Reggie's overnight. Reggie walks through the Poets Estate, but has to keep waiting for David Harris-Jones, who needs every lamp-post for support.
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On the train, Reggie tells David the events of the previous evening, as David has no recollection. These included asking C.J. for the last waltz, and David's trousers falling down. Seeing his underpants with Beethoven's face on the front, Uncle Percy suggested to the gathered assembly that David was probably a poof.
Again, Reggie has to wait for David on the way to Sunshine Desserts, where already, the D has gone missing.
Reggie says his good mornings to an empty office, and wonders where his usually-punctual Joan has got to. He takes the opportunity to see life from Joan's point of view, sitting in her chair, being effeminate, and pretending to take dictation.
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Joan is in Doc Morrissey's surgery, worried about Reggie's increasingly brazen behaviour. Doc Morrissey is disappointed that she has not gone to see him for a chest examination. He tells Joan that it's the twenty-five-year itch, but that he has now brought it to a crisis, and that he is over the worst.
Joan walks back in to Reggie's office and catches him talking to himself while pretending to be Joan. C.J. rings to ask for Reggie to go to his office straight away. Watch video
In C.J.'s office, Reggie apologises for last night's events, but C.J. tells him not to, claiming that he is only human. This brings on another fantasy for Reggie, this time of C.J. seated at his desk in a rabbit costume, with furry paws, and big Bugs Bunny ears. C.J. buzzes his secretary Marion for David Harris-Jones, and he enters. Tactfully trying to broach the subject of his sexuality, C.J. offers David a cigar, and asks about his girlfriend, then untactfully suggests that perhaps he should be running a wine bar, or a boutique, or a hairdressing salon. David gets annoyed and shouts at C.J., claiming that a man's underpants were his own affair. C.J. sends for Tony Webster, and Reggie asks him to drop his trousers for comparison. David has had enough and crumples under pressure, telling C.J. that he only bought the pants because he admired Beethoven, and they were on special offer. C.J. gets rid of Tony and David, then asks Reggie what he thought of that episode. He also asks him if he is frightened of him, if he regards C.J. as some kind of monster. Reggie says no, and imagines C.J. as a Frankenstein's monster.
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At 4.30, Mr. Campbell-Lewiston arrives in Reggie's office for his briefing. Reggie is rude and sarcastic to him, and eventually reminds him about the changing-room incident. Campbell-Lewiston comes to the conclusion that Reggie's rudeness is a sort of psychological test, and tries it on C.J. on the way out, calling him a 'slimy creep'.
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Reggie walks very slowly back through the Poets Estate, as if formulating a plan.
Reggie sits in front of the TV, but given the announcer's line-up of programmes for the evening, including an investigation into the possibility of polystyrene wine racks causing warts, Reggie decides to ring Elizabeth instead. He wakes her up again, and she rings off. Reggie sees it as the last straw.
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